This Mortal Coil

This Mortal Coil was a gothic dream pop collective led by Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British record label 4AD. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were technically the only two official members, the band's recorded output featured a large rotating cast of supporting artists, many of whom were signed to, or otherwise associated with, 4AD.About half of the songs released were cover versions, often of 1960s and 1970s psychedelic and folk acts. On each of the band's three LPs, at least one song would also be a cover of a 4AD artist, and most of the original songs were instrumentals. The name "This Mortal Coil" is taken from the Monty Python's Flying Circus "Dead Parrot sketch",which in turn is a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

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Links To Peel

Peel was a big fan of the band's Song To The Siren track, originally sang by Tim Buckley and featuring the vocals of Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, which reached number 4 in the 1983 Festive Fifty and was one of Peel's favourite tracks in his Peelenium 1983. The single also featured versions of the tracks "Sixteen Days" and "Gathering Dust" by Modern English, who were also Peel favourites. In later years in the 80's, the band's music was often played by Peel, but by the 90's, he rarely played any of their new material.